Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles — John Shaqi
Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British IslesTuke, Daniel Hack
History
Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles
Tuke, Daniel Hack
Mental health laws -- Great Britain; Mental illness -- Great Britain; Mentally ill -- Care; Psychiatric hospitals -- Great Britain
"But see the madman rage downright
With furious looks, a ghastly sight!
Naked in chains bound doth he lie
And roars amain, he knows not why."
The first edition of Burton's work was published in 1621, five years
after the death of Shakespeare, who speaks, in "As You Like It" (Act
iii. sc. 2), of madmen deserving "a dark house and a whip," and in
"Twelfth Night" makes Sir Toby say of Malvolio (Act iii. scene 4),
"Come, we'll have him in a dark room and bound." The medical treatment
of melancholia contained in Burton consists mainly of herbs, as borage,
supposed to affect the heart, poppies to act on the head, eupatory
(teazel) on the liver, wormwood on the stomach, and endive to purify the
blood. Vomits of white hellebore or antimony, and purges of black
hellebore or aloes, are prescribed.
The famous "Herbal" of Gerarde, published in 1597, gives various
remedies for madness, but they are, unfortunately, copied for the most
part from Dioscorides, Galen, and other ancient writers. They are so far
of interest that they show what was accepted as the best-known drug
practice at the time in England in mental disorders. Under "A Medicine
against Madnesse" we have rhubarb and wild thyme, the latter being "a
right singular remedie to cure them that have had a long phrensie or
lethargie." He is here only following Aetius, and when he says, "Besides
its singular effects in splenetical matters, it helpeth any disease of
melancholy," he appears to follow Galen. Feverfew is said to be "good
for such as be melancholike, sad, pensive, and without speech." Syrup
made of flowers of borage "comforteth the heart, purgeth the melancholy,
and quieteth the phrenticke or lunaticke person." Hellebore, of course,
has its virtues recognized. Black hellebore, or the Christmas rose,
"purgeth all melancholy humors, yet not without trouble and difficultie,
therefore it is not to be given but to robustious and strong bodies as
Mesues teacheth. It is good for mad and furious men, for melancholy,
dull, and heavy persons, for those that are troubled with the falling
sickness (epilepsy)," and "briefely for all those that are troubled with
blacke choler, and molested with melancholy."[43]
Gerarde strongly commends "that noble and famous confection _Alkermes_,
made by the Arabians," containing the grains of the scarlet oak (_Ilex
coccigera_). "It is good against melancholy deseases, vaine
imaginations, sighings, griefe and sorrow without manifest cause, for
that it purgeth away melancholy humors" (p. 1343). Poultices applied to
the head, of mustard and figs, are recommended for epilepsy and
lethargy. Gerarde adopts from Apuleius the virtues of double yellow and
white batchelor's buttons, hung "in a linnen cloath about the necke of
him that is lunaticke, in the waine of the moone, when the signe shall
be in the first degree of Taurus or Scorpio."
Such are the principal remedies for insanity given by Gerarde, original
and second hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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